


Bad Things Happen Bingo: Black Eye

by taylor_tut



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-09 16:15:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18641626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taylor_tut/pseuds/taylor_tut
Summary: The kids are around 17 here. Vanya's boyfriend gives her a black eye and Klaus is the only one who sees through the makeup and comes to talk to her. They have a heart to heart.





	Bad Things Happen Bingo: Black Eye

Vanya should have expected the knock at her door after dinner. 

“Open up,” Klaus demanded lightly from the other side, and Vanya put down her book to do so. Klaus was standing there when she did so, leaning casually against the frame in a tank top and ridiculous leather lace-up pants that she herself could never find the confidence to pull off. Even at 17, when the worst thing anyone could do to you was look at you wrong, Klaus seemed to be secure in himself in a way that no one else was. 

“Hey,” she greeted, and Klaus nodded, pushing past her to flop onto her bed seemingly casually. 

“Hi, Vanya,” he replied. “So, where’d you get the black eye?”

She stopped dead in her tracks. “I don’t—”

He reached out to her face and she tried her best not to flinch backward but knew that she failed. Klaus’ hand was gentle as he smoothed the concealer that she’d put over the In a moment, Klaus was flopping down on her bed, motioning for her to join him. She did, to an extent, but not the extent that he’d have preferred. She could sit beside him, but lying down side by side was too much for her to process. If there was one good thing that she had to say about Klaus, it was that he never pressed her for more contact than she was comfortable with. 

“Vanya,” he cut off her excuse; do no harm but take no shit. She sighed. 

“My boyfriend,” she admitted, feeling Klaus’ body stiffen against hers before she correced, “well, ex-boyfriend.” Klaus was silent for a long moment. 

“Whose ass am I kicking?” he demanded. She hadn’t told anyone in the family that she was seeing someone, and though Reginald would likely not care about who she did and did not assiociate with, Klaus knew that she wasn’t likely to tell him about what had happened, either. 

“You don’t have to—”

“Nobody gets to lay a hand on you and get away with it,” Klaus curtailed, an icy venom to his tone that she’d never heard before. Klaus was the friendly sibling, the one who never took anything too seriously, the one who never hurt a fly because if he did, it would come back, very literally, to haunt him. He sighed. “You don’t have to tell me,” he finally caved. 

She paused for a long moment, pondering in her mind what she was actually afraid of and only speaking when she finally figured it out. 

“You have to promise not to tell anyone else,” she said, “especially Dad. Or Allison.”

Klaus blinked. “Why Allison?” 

“She… she’s just… she wouldn’t get it,” Vanya finally settled upon. Her sister was judgy; she held others to the standard of someone who could get literally whatever she wanted just with a few words. No guy would ever forbid Allison from spending alone time with other men, including her brothers. No guy would ever accuse Allison of cheating just because traffic had made her a few minutes late to his house. No guy would ever hit Allison for trying to dump him. Because she couldn’t fathom it, she wouldn’t be able to accept it, and the last thing Vanya needed right now was another reason to feel like there was something so fundamentally worthless about her that people would never treat her any better than they did right now. She had to believe that, at the very least, normal people in the normal world would see some value in her, but tonight had been a rocky start. Klaus noticed the tears forming in her eyes before she herself did and pulled her in close. His shirt—he was wearing one, for once—smelled of cigarrettes despite that she could tell that he hadn’t smoked yet today; at this point the drugs were in every fiber of his clothing. She hated that for him. 

“Okay,” Klaus agreed. “It’s just you and me. Say whatever you’ve got to say.” 

Vanya readied her voice to explain what had happened but found that when she opened her mouth to speak, no sound came out. When she inhaled to try again, the breath was shaky, and so was the rapid, warm exhale; then the next inhale was a choked-in sob that she couldn’t control. Instinctively, she reached into her pocket for her pills, but Klaus pushed her hand away. 

“Take it from an expert,” he said so gently that she felt herself start to cry harder, “you’re not gonna heal if you numb this away.” 

It made sense, in the sort of abstract way that Klaus ever made sense, so she nodded and let him hold her, stroke her hair, coo sweet little shushings until she ran out of tears. When she finally pulled away from his embrace, his shirt was stained with her tears. She prepared herself for the embarrassment of him pointing that out, of making a joke about it, but he didn’t. Instead, he reached for a box of tissues from the side table and handed them to her. She used one to clean her face and used the moment during which her eyes were covered by the white, soft paper to compose herself. 

“Thanks, Klaus,” she said softly, sfuffily. “I’m okay now. Sorry for—”

“Hey,” he interjected, “don’t be. I’m glad you’re feeling a little better.” 

In all honesty, she was surprised that was true. Perhaps there had been some truth to what he’d said about just needing to cry it out, because she felt more stable than she’d ever felt on the pills alone. 

“I’m going to take a bath and go to bed,” Vanya said. Tired was one thing; she was always tired—all the Hargreeves siblings were. Feeling able to sleep was another thing entirely, and after her conversation with Klaus, she felt for the first time in a long time that she might be able to get some restful sleep. 

“Okay,” Klaus replied. He pressed a kiss, mostly exaggerated but still warm, to her forehead and stood up from his seat on her bed. “Goodnight, Vanya.” 

“Goodnight,” she said. 


End file.
